Suffolk supervisors decry Levy mandate

As part of his 2012 budget, County Executive Steve Levy changed the way the county pays for its students to attend community colleges, much to the chagrin of Suffolk’s town supervisors.

Eight of the 10 Suffolk town supervisors appeared at Levy’s Hauppauge offices Monday to voice their displeasure at the new system, which shifts the burden of subsidizing students who attend out-of-county community colleges from the county government to the town governments. That subsidy is estimated to be $11 million.

“For a guy who is always talking about unfunded mandates, the county executive is sticking the taxpayers of our respective towns with a hidden tax and that is bad public policy,” said Islip Supervisor Phil Nolan. “And if he is successful it would shift a charge that is paid mostly by the county sales tax and put it on the backs to property tax payers in our town.”

Levy spokesman Mark Smith said the new system was “more equitable,” considering 56 percent of students in Suffolk who attend out-of-county community colleges are from two towns: Babylon and Huntington. Under the current system, county residents pay a flat tax for these students, no matter which town they live in.

Smith said the system was similar to one Nassau County has utilized with its towns since 2004.

“We should ensure that some portions of the county are no longer subsidizing other portions that have a larger percentage of out-of-county students,” Smith said. “Paying on a town-by-town basis will accomplish this. This is about fairness.”

But the supervisors said the change equates to an unfunded mandate that the county only told them about during the recent 2012 budget process. They also were not notified of the related costs, which could be as turn into as much as a 13 percent tax increase for some towns.

In response, Brookhaven Supervisor Mark Lesko, who serves as chairman of the Suffolk County Supervisor’s Association, sent a letter on Sept. 20 to Levy, expressing shock over the new tax.

“Frankly, [Levy's] tax increase of millions of dollars will make the MTA Tax look like pennies on the dollar,” Lesko said in his letter. “And, perhaps most disturbingly, [he] provided the towns with absolutely no warning of this mandated town tax increase and we were left to find out about it from one of [his] aides days before our preliminary budgets are due to be presented to our respective boards.”

Smith responded by saying the fault lies with New York state.

“We believe that state law should be changed so that no local taxpayers have to subsidize the tuition of a student who freely decides to go to an out-of-county community college, and we invite town supervisors to join us in lobbying Albany,” Smith said.